Days Gone is “on the opposite end of the spectrum from The Last of Us"

There was a point during the reveal of Days Gone’s zombie-infused action that I genuinely expected it to be a The Last of Us spin off, if not an actual sequel. That world gone to shit, post apocalyptic vibe seemed very familiar and, even with a different type of faster monster, it’s hard to shake comparisons to Naughty Dog’s game.

However, senior staff artist Brian Pape disagrees, saying. “I think this is on the opposite end of the spectrum from The Last of Us. It’s more over the top, its more extreme. The sheer number [of zombies] we have shows that. In The Last of Us you’d come across one or two at a time and make your way between them. This is more of a run and gun style, over the top extreme action”.

That extreme action is hard to miss when a few hundred zombies pour out of a door and the gunfire starts. Senior animator Emmanuel Roth also points out the game's open world survival elements that let you tackle missions how you want. “We have this big open world where you can interact if you see something in the mountain, the background, if you want to check it out. You can go somewhere and deal with it the way you want”.

Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann recently admitted there's a half a plan for a The Last of Us 2 already in place, ready to go once all Uncharted 4's DLC is done. That's obviously a few years out at best but it means Sony could well have two high profile, triple A zombie games on its slate in the future.